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Children could internalise blame for a death, suffer as much grief as adults, and express as much emotion as adults. Research on young children's perceptions of death has been conducted primarily in Western cultures. This paper is an exploration of Chinese 5-year-olds' understanding of death. Data analyses are mainly based on children's drawings and their description of the drawings. Children's drawings of issues related to death were analysed using the phenomenographic method to identify content-specific categories. It is shown through this study that Chinese 5-year-olds have an initial understanding of the biological, psychological, and metaphysical concepts of death. Findings of the current study highlight the importance of paying more attention to the impact of cultural practices and religion on children's understanding of death.

This longitudinal study examined the association between Chinese children's coping strategies and depressive symptoms within the context of the transition from preschool to primary school in Hong Kong. Research Findings: Principal component analyses of children's strategies for coping with stress during the transition to school revealed three factors: negative coping, positive coping, and distraction. Children's strategies were moderately stable over time, but the relationship between coping and depressive symptoms differed for boys and girls. Girls' positive coping strategies at Time 1 predicted fewer depressive symptoms at Time 2, whereas girls' use of distraction positively predicted later depressive symptoms. Boys' depressive symptoms at Time 1 predicted negative coping strategies at Time 2. The present findings show that distraction may not always be an effective way to help young children reduce depressive symptoms, and that coping strategies may have a greater impact on reducing later depression risk for girls than for boys. Practice or Policy: Implications for future studies and practices are discussed at the end of this paper. This study provides information for educators and government and non-government organizations in developing programs to help children with effective coping strategies during their first year at school.

Recent research suggests that children may encounter aggressive behaviour during the transition from preschool to school. Yet, relatively few longitudinal studies have been conducted on children's perceptions of aggressive behaviour in the transition from preschool to school. This study aims to fill a major gap in the literature by exploring Chinese children's perceptions and experiences of aggressive behaviour, and their ways of coping with aggression, at three points in time: during the last month at preschool (Time 1), the first three months of Year 1 at school (Time 2) and the last month of Year 1 (Time 3). The present study also examines the role gender plays in 79 Chinese children's perceptions of aggressive behaviour, as depicted in their drawings and accompanying narratives. The children mainly reported physical and verbal aggression rather than relational aggression. The findings provide robust data for understanding how children cope with aggression at school.

This study explores (1) how parental and teacher scaffolding and children's coping strategies contribute to children's adjustment during the transition from preschool to school; and (2) how children's perception of stress and coping are constructed over time. The sample included 216 six-year-old children, their parents and teachers. The parents, teachers and children reported that many children encountered social stress and being incompetent at school, and most of the children used either direct problem-solving or seeking social support to cope with stress, but had not used emotion-focused coping strategies learnt at preschool. Compared with the parents' and teachers' responses, the children reported more incidences of social stress. Compared with the children's responses, more parents and teachers reported children being incompetent in learning or self-help skills at school. Implications of the study were discussed at the end of the article.

This study explores how children's perceptions of stress factors and coping strategies are constructed over time. Children were interviewed before and after they made the transition from preschool to primary school. This study also explores teachers' and parental strategies in helping children to cope with stress at school. The sample included 53 six-year-old children, their parents and teachers. The findings show that children generally could make accurate predictions of unhappy things that might happen during the transition to primary school. Children reported being incompetent in fulfilling teachers' expectations regarding learning, self-help skills and conforming to rules. Children also reported peer conflicts and being nervous about authority. Children learned direct problem-solving skills, seeking social support and emotional regulation at preschool, but had only used the first two coping strategies at school. A majority of parents thought that transition problems affected children's emotions, whereas most teachers thought that transition problems affected children's learning.

A total of 267 five-, seven-, and ten-year-olds (M = 7.62), 147 in Hong Kong and 120 in the United States, evaluated hypothetical personal (and moral) events described as either essential or peripheral to actors' identity. Except for young Chinese in the peripheral condition, straightforward personal events were overwhelmingly evaluated as acceptable based on personal justifications. Children primarily endorsed compliance, but attributed negative emotions to actors when mothers forbade personal choices, especially when described as essential to identity. Conventional justifications declined among Chinese children and pragmatic justifications for these judgments increased with age for all children, as did judgments that personal events were up to the child. Rules were seen as more legitimate and events were seen as more up to mothers to decide for moral than personal events.

Gilligan argued that Kohlberg's justice-based stage theory of morality reflects only one type of morality and does not consider people's tendency to use care-based moral judgements. This study examines Chinese children's tendency to use justice-based and care-based justifications for moral reasoning. Children's attitudes to conforming to the sharing rule were investigated by asking five-year-olds (N = 155) about a hypothetical situation in which there were conflicts between conforming to rules and fulfilling personal goals/desires in the family context. Children were asked to suggest appropriate solutions for the conflicts and to justify their suggestions. Results indicated that the majority of the Chinese children's moral reasoning was characterised by care-based morality that focuses on the importance of pro-social behaviours (being helpful, caring for the needs of others). The findings highlight the need for teachers to critically examine how justice and care are taught in the preschool context, and to what extent cultural values affect children's moral orientations. (Contains 5 tables.)

This study investigated whether kindergartners would advocate sharing toys equally across situations or on the basis of recipients' characteristics, and whether each group member would be counted as one unit for allocation across situations. Findings indicated that kindergartners tended to allocate more blocks to a younger child than to a same-age one. Children's reasons offered for allocations were influenced by age and behavior of recipient. (Author/KB)